XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a system for defining specialized markup languages that are used to transmit formatted data. XML may be used to express mathematical equations, e-commerce transactions, object meta-data, server applications, and a variety of other types of structured information. Generally, XML and similar languages provide a flexible architecture for representing objects in a notation that defines object types and hierarchical relationships of objects. However, a particular XML file may contain a large number of objects and corresponding relationship and/or definition information associated with the objects.
There are a lot of different ways of expressing the same idea in XML. An XML file that expresses an idea or object in a simpler manner than another XML file that expresses the same idea or object is generally easier to maintain, use, and modify. Further, an XML representation might express a concept or an internal software representation that is more or less “expensive” from a computational or storage basis. Some elements of the representation may have a higher “cost” in time, space, complexity, etc. Also, a combination of elements in a hierarchy could result in different ultimate “costs” based upon the combination as a whole. Such a determination of these costs and related metrics would be beneficial but is hard to obtain.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.